Turns out the problem with all of th NIC’s not being recognized was a bios setting. After a late night and early morning the system is functioning, but not within what I consider normal parameters. So if you note any problems, I hope to have them fixed later this week.

I have to admit that one of the most frustrating things about Linux installs is the gotchas that come into play with each distro. For the last three years or so the performancepixel.com server was running RedHat’s community supported distro called Fedora Core. FC4 had been working fine until a kernel update took place about six months ago. The new kernel would not recognize my network card(s). So each time I received an updated kernel I had to edit the startup settings in grub to use the last old version that worked with my NIC. Working in information security I knew I had to update the server OS at some point to avoid lack of security updates, which the new kernels were in reality.

So far I have installed Ubuntu without successfully detecting the NICs in the system. I chose Ubuntu as I have a working 800Mhz Ubuntu system that I used to test the gallery software prior to this exercise. If all else fails, I can move the photo hard drive into this system and limp along for a while. The next Linux OS installed was Fedroa Core 6. It did not detect the NICs either and failed to configure Xwindows. Right now I am installing Suse Linux, but it will not complete before I leave for work and the next window of opportunity to complete the install is Thursday night. So if you keep receiving this blog instead of performancepixel.com, please pray for patience on my part.

Ed.- I thought Ubuntu had it figured out. If you can give a person with little technical experience a Linux distro that will install and work and do about everything the average person needs a computer for, then Linux may be ready for the masses. At this point though, none of the distributions fit that bill.

I may be sorry for doing this, but I am going to attempt to upgrade the server to the latest version of Fedroa Core. If you keep getting this blog returned when trying to visit performancepixel.com, then the update is not complete. Please check again at some point.

The folks at debra.org selected eight portraits to be printed for their offices in NYC. I gathered some pricing locally for the 20″X30″ mounted prints and asked a couple of large print houses in the city for pricing as well. The large print houses were more than double local pricing. I have asked AS Photo Lab for pricing so we will see if I have to ship what I can get locally or if these folks could print, mount and deliver since they are only a few blocks away from the debra offices. To see the prints debra selected, check out the first eight images in this gallery.